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Monday, December 14, 2015

Growing Up Star Wars

I
grew up in a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas, where there were two things that you
didn’t dare miss each week: Sunday morning church (at least in our family) and, during football season,
the Dallas Cowboys game. If someone asked you at school the day after the game
what you thought of it, you’d better have a good answer—if you knew little to
nothing about football, you were often branded a “wuss” or a “sissy.”

In
1976, when I was nine-years-old, the Dallas Cowboys lost the Super Bowl to the hated Pittsburgh Steelers, a devastating blow to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. In 1977, the year
the original Star Wars hit theaters,
the Cowboys missed the Super Bowl, but they made a valiant return to the NFL’s
showcase game in 1978, trouncing the Denver Broncos.

As
an impressionable kid who had a dad and older brother who were bonkers over
football, I was bummed when the Cowboys lost and excited when they won.
However, my interest in the exploits of Tom Landry, Roger Staubach, Tony
Dorsett and company was dwarfed by my fascination with Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and the gang. After all, while community pride was at
stake when the Cowboys played, the fate of the entire universe hung in the
balance when the Rebellion faced off against the Empire.

We
didn’t go to the movies very often, but we did see some of the more popular
films, including Star Wars. My
parents and my sister sat this one out, but my brother and I made sure to see the
film right away. We both enjoyed it, but while my brother got on with his life
after the viewing, the movie stuck with me long after the credits rolled. I
already loved Star Trek, and in my
young mind, Star Wars was simply a
faster, flashier, more explosive version of that franchise.

Nowadays,
everyone seems to unashamedly love Star
Wars, but in the late 1970s, that wasn’t the case, at least in the
Texas town where I lived. You could like the movie and even talk about it at
school with impunity, but you didn’t want to show too much enthusiasm or you
would risk wearing the “nerd” label, which was a deathblow when it came to your
social status. Geek may be chic now, but it wasn’t back then—far from it.

There
was one kid in our neighborhood whose love of Star Wars was on display for the world to see. Not only did he
quote the film ad nauseam, he played with Star Trek spaceships and “dolls,” which is what the kids who teased him called
action figures. The fearless fan continued proclaiming his allegiance to Star Wars throughout junior high, thanks
in part to the release of its first sequel, The
Empire Strikes Back, which stunned audiences in 1980 with the revelation
that Darth Vader was Luke’s father.

Because
of my desire to maintain my social status, I kept my extracurricular Star Wars activities on the down-low. I put
together an X-Wing model kit, and I read (and re-read) Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (1978), the very
first Star Wars spinoff novel, but those
were personal endeavors, so no one was the wiser. And, in seventh grade, my
English teacher, much to my surprise, let me do my book report on the Star Wars novelization. Since this was a
subtle rebellion (so to speak) against doing reports on “boring old real books,”
the other kids, even the bullies, thought it was kinda cool.

By
the time Return of the Jedi hit
theaters in 1983, I was sixteen-years-old and in high school. Once again, it
was okay to enjoy the film, as long as you weren’t a “fanboy” about it. And, of
course, as long as you hated the cuddly Ewoks, which were the 1980s equivalent
of the reviled Jar Jar Binks from Star
Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, the first of the dreaded prequels.

Released
in 1999, The Phantom Menace mystified
most Star Wars fans who had eagerly
waited for years for a continuation of the series. Darth Maul was awesome (if
underutilized), and the pod race was cool, but the plot—something to do with
the trade federation—was stultifyingly dull. Plus, the lead characters, most
notably Qui-Gon Jinn and Queen Amidala/Padmé, were almost entirely bereft of the
charisma, charm, and likability of Han, Luke, and Leia.

The
other two prequels, Star Wars: Episode
II—Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star
Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith (2005), had their moments, but series
creator George Lucas, who wrote and directed all three prequels, had definitely
lost his way. The romance between Anakin Skywalker and Padmé was sappy, the
introduction of midi-chlorians removed the mystical nature of The Force, and
the films in general lacked the life, pizzazz, and overall excitement of the
original trilogy.

As
I write this, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which takes place after The Return of the Jedi, is just a few days from its December 18 release, and I
think it’s going to be great. George Lucas, who must be commended for inventing
the franchise in the first place, is mercifully out of the picture, paving the
way for director (and co-writer) J. J. Abrams. The director of the
action-packed Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, Abrams has promised
to take the franchise where no Star Wars
film has gone before. Believe him, I do.

Sotheby’s Star Wars Auction

If
the Star Wars kid in my neighborhood
would have kept his action figures in the package, he might have gotten rich.
Some of the rarer Star Wars figures from
the late 1970s and early 1980s are worth hundreds and even thousands of dollars
unopened, a fact not lost upon Sotheby’s, which, for the first time in its illustrious
history, hosted an auction completely dedicated to Star Wars items. Of the 175 lots that sold, most were pristine action
figures.

The
online sale, which occurred December 11, brought in $505,202, an astonishing
figure for a bunch of (mostly) plastic toys that are all less than 40 years
old. The top-selling item was a seven-character Empire Strikes Back multi-pack that was originally available only
through the Sears retail chain in Canada. The rare piece brought in $32,500,
three times its estimate.

Next
was a 1977 store display from an “Early Bird Certificate Package.” Since there
are only five known to exist, it went for $20,000—a lot to pay for a cardboard
advertisement.

One
of the more interesting items was a Luke Skywalker figure with a “double-telescoping”
lightsaber, which was expected to go for upwards of $18,000. It eclipsed that
mark by $7,000, bringing in $25,000. According to Sotheby’s, there are “only 20
confirmed examples” of that figure because it was “quickly withdrawn from the
market due to the propensity for the lightsaber to snap off.”

“There
have been people collecting Star Wars
stuff since the movie hit in 1977,” says Toy & Comic Heaven owner James
Gallo, Sotheby’s consultant for the sale. “For a large number of people who
originally saw the movie when they were kids, it’s a childhood memory they can
capture and we can relate to.”

On
Nov. 15, 1984, I went with a buddy to a Rick Springfield concert at Reunion
Arena in Dallas. The women in the audience outnumbered the men at least 10 to
1. Suave, good looking, and a popular actor and singer, Springfield was the
epitome of cool—men wanted to be him, women wanted to be with him.

Much
to my surprise, Springfield was recently revealed to be a Star Wars nerd, thanks to a Rolling
Stone video that has gone viral on YouTube. While he may still pine over
“Jesse’s Girl” onstage, the brunette heartbreaker shouldn’t complain—he has one
of the most impressive Star Wars
action figure collections in existence.

“I
actually like the toys more than I like the movies,” Springfield says in the
mini-documentary. “When the figures came out I started collecting them. I was
just old enough that I took a couple out of the package and starting playing
with them. I kind of looked around to make sure no one was watching me and
realized I was past that. I liked them, I loved the packaging, so I just bought
them all and kept them in the packages and stuck them in my closet.”

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About Me

A freelance writer, I'm the author of the Classic Home Video Games series, The 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 1977-1987, Encyclopedia of KISS, and other books. I've had articles published in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Filmfax, Fangoria, AntiqueWeek, The Writer, Mystery Scene, and more.
Contact me at brettw105 AT sbcglobal.net.